Best way to house quail?

[chipens]

Some of mine used it not all of them though. Im thinking of rehousing mine in a eglu so they can be on the grass more often. Some people have avairys with budgies and finches the quail clean up all the seed that gets dropped! Just make sure whatever you get is predator proof. I lost all my first quail to rats. And the ones I have now have had a magpie trying to get them. Fortunately they were secure.

Do they like to be on grass? Would like a run on the ground that can be moved around for fresh grass be better than something off the ground or with dirt/woodchip base? Or do they do well either way?

 

[JaeG]

Moving them may cause them to stop laying - they don't seem to cope well with change, so I'd find somewhere they can permanently be. I'd put a solid base on your cage at least, and if it's on the ground I'd put a board around the bottom at least 20cm wide so that no rats can try and grab them at night.

You can pack them in like sardines, but it's not ideal. Minimum recommendation is 0.5sq/ft per bird, but that's pretty crowded. 1 sq/ft is more commonly suggested which is about 0.1sq/m. They do enjoy a bit of space to leap around and play.

 

[chipens]

Moving them may cause them to stop laying - they don't seem to cope well with change, so I'd find somewhere they can permanently be. I'd put a solid base on your cage at least, and if it's on the ground I'd put a board around the bottom at least 20cm wide so that no rats can try and grab them at night.

You can pack them in like sardines, but it's not ideal. Minimum recommendation is 0.5sq/ft per bird, but that's pretty crowded. 1 sq/ft is more commonly suggested which is about 0.1sq/m. They do enjoy a bit of space to leap around and play.

Im in the north island (hawkes bay) im having trouble finding fertile eggs close by. How do they do being shipped (to incubate)? Only ones I can find are otago/Canterbury or auckland areas.

 

[JaeG]

Im in the north island (hawkes bay) im having trouble finding fertile eggs close by. How do they do being shipped (to incubate)? Only ones I can find are otago/Canterbury or auckland areas.

I'm in Auckland and I had some hatching eggs come from Whangarei. They took longer than they should've (posted on the Monday, finally turned up on Friday)! I got about a 50% hatch rate, and most of them turned out to be boys, which was annoying, but at least I had some new blood to add to my older quail.

 

[purslanegarden]

For the non-moveable pen, I used straw as their foundation. It worked fine but it means they don't get as much access to bare patches of ground, because at some point, that ground under them is no longer that kind of dusty, loose earth that they like to bathe in.

But if you treat those commercial coops like you do with chickens, and lock them up at night inside the housing, you might be able to get away with less security around the legs or fenced in sections. But it's best if you do secure everything as much as possible.

The coturnix Japanese quail will lay often if conditions are right, so if you want them mostly for eggs, you should be OK in that department.